from the support-group-for-Stingray-lies-now-includes-roughly-everybody dept

Harris Corporation's Stingray cell tower spoofers are swiftly becoming synonymous with government lying. The FBI has specifically instructed law enforcement agencies to lie about the use of these products, which basically puts the agencies in the position of lying to courts when producing evidence or securing warrants.

Law enforcement agencies would probably lie anyway, even without the federal government's nudge. Many chose to read the restrictive non-disclosure agreements Harris includes as meaning they should withhold this information from local courts -- rather than simply seal the documents or redact them.

New documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California appear to show the Florida-based Harris Corporation misleading the Federal Communications Commission while seeking authorization to sell its line of Stingray cell phone surveillance gear to state and local police. The documents raise the possibility that federal regulatory approval of the technology was based on bad information.

Harris says its devices are FCC-approved, but what it doesn't specify is the very limited approval it has actually received. An email from a Harris representative to FCC employees [pdf link] contains the following paragraph.

Just want to make you aware of the question below we received regarding the application for the Sting Fish. I know many of these questions are generated automatically but it sounds as if there is some confusion about the purpose of the equipment authorization application. As you may recall, the purpose is only to provide state/local law enforcement officials with authority to utilize this equipment in emergency situations.

As the ACLU points out, Stingray (or "Sting Fish") usage had long since surpassed the "emergency use only" restriction -- if that ever existed at all. Routine investigations utilize these devices all the time. Just one of several examples: when the Tallahassee police department's use of Stingrays came to light, the court noted that it had deployed the technology (without a warrant) more than 200 times, with less than 30% of the deployments being for department-labelled "emergencies."

Law enforcement agencies are secretly acquiring and deploying these devices in violation of the limited FCC approval, and have been doing so for years -- well ahead of this 2010 statement. And Harris is telling them that it's OK. The ACLU has written a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler [pdf link] asking him open an investigation into the use of Stingray devices. If Wheeler obliges, the FCC is going to face a united front of zipped lips. The FBI already locks the Dept. of Justice out of its investigations. There's no chance it's going to be more obliging of a tangentially-related federal agency.

from the indeed dept

All along, the USTR and the White House have insisted that ACTA is not a treaty and doesn't require Congressional approval. Of course, many people have pointed out this is a game of semantics in which the White House is calling it one thing to avoid having to get Congressional approval. The EU has already admitted that ACTA is a binding treaty, and even ACTA supporters in the US have admitted it's really a treaty.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the exercise is the announcement by USTR that it will not seek congressional approval of the ACTA. The US Constitution expressly grants Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. That express grant distinguishes regulation of international trade from the general allocation of treaty making powers under the Constitution. Moreover, Congress is expressly granted the power to make laws regarding patents and copyrights. It is difficult to identify an area of international agreement-making that more directly entails a constitutional requirement of congressional approval than the ACTA.

USTR has taken the position that the ACTA will require no changes to US law. Therefore, in USTR’s view, congressional approval is not required. This argument ignores that the ACTA regulates commerce with foreign nations, whether or not it requires changes to existing domestic law. Beyond that, however, does US law presently grant customs authorities a broad power to seize undefined “suspect goods” at the border as the ACTA requires?

The larger point raised by Abbott is one that we've been pointing out for years: it's stunning how all of these countries that pretend they're pushing for "free trade" and a decrease in protectionism, are really doing exactly the opposite with so-called "free trade" agreements like ACTA. They're nothing more than protectionist policies, and they're going to backfire in a big way by allowing other countries to be protectionist back (something that even Homeland Security has warned about). Here's Abbott:

One wonders what the G8 negotiators were thinking about as they negotiated the ACTA. The agreement seems designed to confer extensive authority on customs to seize and hold goods as they enter and/or pass through borders. It is the virtual antithesis to opening markets to international trade. We see the difference between the rhetoric of Doha and the reality: stalling on trade liberalization while erecting new nontransparent trade barriers. Mystifying.

It really does seem problematic. As these countries claim they're trying to decrease trade barriers, the whole point of ACTA is to give border control in all of these countries excessive and broad powers to block the import of goods and effectively put up new trade barriers.

from the loses-some-of-the-appeal dept

Wikipedia has apparently been testing a system by which new edits from most users don't show up for most visitors until they get approved by someone with "authority." The plan sounds similar to one that was suggested a year ago -- but in that case, the new edits would simply be shaded in a different color to warn people that they hadn't been reviewed. That seems much more effective than completely waiting to approve any edit -- especially since the "approvals" are really just to weed out vandalism, not to review the actual trustworthiness of the content. But with color coded "unreviewed" content, it will remind users to make sure they're even more cautious than they should be with regular Wikipedia content. Either way, requiring approval before edits go live seems like it would take away much of the spirit that made Wikipedia what it is today.